DRI Seizes 6.61 kg Smuggled Gold Worth Rs 10.36 Crore, 11 Held

The correct answer is the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, commonly called DRI, which works under the Ministry of Finance and is the country's specialised agency for customs intelligence and anti-smuggling work. It was DRI that acted on intelligence about gold crossing the India-Bangladesh border, intercepted the courier parcels in several cities and seized the metal under the customs law. Option A, the Enforcement Directorate, is wrong because that body deals mainly with foreign exchange and money laundering offences and had no role in this seizure. Option C, the Central Bureau of Investigation, is wrong because it is the general investigating agency for corruption and serious crime, not for customs and smuggling. Option D, the National Investigation Agency, is wrong because its mandate covers terrorism and related offences. Candidates should link smuggling and customs cases to DRI.

The correct answer is 6.61 kg worth about Rs 10.36 crore. That quantity of foreign-origin gold, all of it in bar form, was recovered from the courier consignments that were intercepted during the coordinated operation, and it was seized under the relevant provisions of the customs law. The other three combinations are invented figures placed there as distractors and do not match what was recovered. A useful way to remember the answer is that the seizure of roughly six and a half kilograms was only the visible part of the racket; the documents examined afterwards showed a far larger flow of gold through the very same courier chain over the preceding months. Eleven people were arrested in connection with the case, one of them described as a mastermind.

The correct answer is about 318 kg worth about Rs 475 crore. Documents examined after the arrests showed that this quantity of smuggled gold had already been carried and delivered through the same courier-based network during nine months of the current calendar year, which is what revealed the true size of the operation. The remaining options carry invented quantities and values and do not correspond to the case. Candidates should keep the two sets of numbers apart: the quantity physically seized during the raids was much smaller, while the figure in this question describes the cumulative movement of gold that the paperwork exposed. The syndicate deliberately split consignments into small parcels so that each one looked unremarkable in the courier stream.